diff --git a/iphone/Maps/Categories/UIKitCategories.m b/iphone/Maps/Categories/UIKitCategories.m
index f88358618..f94e58ed7 100644
--- a/iphone/Maps/Categories/UIKitCategories.m
+++ b/iphone/Maps/Categories/UIKitCategories.m
@@ -181,17 +181,18 @@
 
 - (BOOL)openUrl:(NSString *)urlString externally:(BOOL)externally skipEncoding:(BOOL)skipEncoding
 {
-  // TODO: This is a temporary workaround to open cyrillic/non-ASCII URLs.
-  // URLs in OSM are stored in UTF-8. NSURL constructor documentation says:
-  // > Must be a URL that conforms to RFC 2396. This method parses URLString according to RFCs 1738 and 1808.
-  // The right way to encode the URL string should be:
-  // 1. Split the (non-ASCII) string into components (host, path, query, fragment, etc.)
-  // 2. Encode each component separately (they have different allowed characters).
-  // 3. Merge them back into the string and create NSURL.
   NSString * encoded;
   if (skipEncoding) {
     encoded = urlString;
-  } else {
+  } else if (![urlString canBeConvertedToEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding])
+  {
+    // TODO: This is a temporary workaround to open cyrillic/non-ASCII URLs.
+    // URLs in OSM are stored in UTF-8. NSURL constructor documentation says:
+    // > Must be a URL that conforms to RFC 2396. This method parses URLString according to RFCs 1738 and 1808.
+    // The right way to encode the URL string should be:
+    // 1. Split the (non-ASCII) string into components (host, path, query, fragment, etc.)
+    // 2. Encode each component separately (they have different allowed characters).
+    // 3. Merge them back into the string and create NSURL.
     NSMutableCharacterSet * charset = [[NSMutableCharacterSet alloc] init];
     [charset formUnionWithCharacterSet:NSCharacterSet.URLHostAllowedCharacterSet];
     [charset formUnionWithCharacterSet:NSCharacterSet.URLPathAllowedCharacterSet];
@@ -200,7 +201,7 @@
     [charset addCharactersInString:@"#;/?:@&=+$,"];
     encoded = [urlString stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacters:charset];
   }
-  
+
   // Matrix has an url with two hashes which doesn't work for NSURL and NSURLComponent.
   NSRange const matrixUrl = [encoded rangeOfString:@"#/#"];
   if (matrixUrl.location != NSNotFound)